# The Imaginary Girlfriend

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- Book: [The Imaginary Girlfriend](https://www.bookquiver.com/john-irving/the-imaginary-girlfriend) ([The Imaginary Girlfriend.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/john-irving/the-imaginary-girlfriend.md))
- Authors: [John Irving](https://www.bookquiver.com/john-irving)
- Publisher: Transworld Digital
- Medium: ebook
- ISBN: 978-14-4811-192-3
- Published: 2012-05-10
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: E-book

## Description

From a novelist known for the complexity of his novels - they are also long - comes an autobiography of compelling simplicity; it is also short. Dedicated to the memory of two wrestling coaches and two writer friends, The Imaginary Girlfriend is a lucid portrait of the writers and wrestlers who played a mentor role in John Irving's development as a novelist, a wrestler and a wrestling coach. Moreover, this candid memoir portrays a father's dedication to his children: Irving coached his sons Colin and Brendan to New England championship titles - a championship that, as a competitor, he himself was denied. John Irving began writing and wrestling when he was fourteen. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, he was certified as a referee for twenty-four and he coached the sport until he was forty-seven. His thirty-three years in wrestling are three times those he spent as a student and a teacher of Creative Writing; yet his concise autobiography details the interrelationship of the disciplines of writing and wrestling - from the days when Irving was a beginner at both pursuits until his fourth wrestling-related surgery at the age of fifty-three. The Imaginary Girlfriend is both a work of the utmost literary accomplishment and a paradigm for living.